To improve the question, try to remove the personal part and generalize your question with some link to people claiming you need (or not) 8h of sleep. There should be no issue in finding those, I'm sure.
– nicoAug 9 '12 at 22:26

Sounds a lot more simple and boring I think, but then again this is my first question in Skeptics ;) If you have any further suggestions feel free to add them. Thx
– Bruno PereiraAug 9 '12 at 22:43

@LanceLafontaine Nice! But from what I read polyphasic sleep is method of achieving the necessary rest, the defined time is still variable. The question here is still: "Are those 7-9 hours actually really needed? Is there anything that would go against not following the recommendations?"
– Bruno PereiraAug 11 '12 at 10:02

3 Answers
3

There are actually two parts that need to be covered when addressing this question. One part pertains to the question if we even need 8 hours of sleep? Another part, if we need 8 hours of sleep, is there a need for them to be consecutive?

I want to split up this question, because when people talk about different types of sleep patterns, like polyphasic sleep, it is often in an attempt to reduce the total amount one spends sleeping. We want to spend our days being more productive, and sleep is considered an unproductive part because we don't consciously do something during this part of our day. When googling polyphasic sleep this becomes evident with for example some titles referring to "Polyphasic Sleep Cycles Trick Your Body into Needing Less Sleep", "Alternative Sleep Cycles: You Don't Really Need 6-8 Hours!"... I however want to approach the issue of amount of sleep and consecutive sleep separately.

Do we need 8 hours of sleep?

So about the first part... do we need 8 hours of sleep? I have answered this question before [1], in which I cite a (freely accessible) article of Van Someren [2]. My answer based on this article (along with other studies that point in this direction) is "yes"... or as the title of Van Someren's article states "Doing with less sleep remains a dream".

Studies have shown that when one gets deprived from their sleep need, this can have negative daytime consequences (e.g. in terms of concentration, mood, sleepiness, cognitive performance...) [3-4]. Or as Van Dongen et al. (2003) conclude from their study [5]:

Since chronic restriction of sleep to 6 h or less per night produced
cognitive performance deficits equivalent to up to 2 nights of total
sleep deprivation, it appears that even relatively moderate sleep
restriction can seriously impair waking neurobehavioral functions in
healthy adults. Sleepiness ratings suggest that subjects were largely
unaware of these increasing cognitive deficits, which may explain why
the impact of chronic sleep restriction on waking cognitive functions
is often assumed to be benign.

Sleep duration doesn't even have to be reduced in itself to have effects on cognitive function, as a study of Van Der Werf et al. (2009) has shown [6]. In this study an acoustic-perturbation setup was used to reduce the amount of slow-wave sleep (these are the deeper stages of sleep), while keeping total sleep duration intact. When talking about chronic sleep deprivation, e.g. as in insomnia, health outcomes can even be more detrimental, although it becomes harder to disentangle the contribution of sleep in itself, due to higher comorbidities and more health concerns in general at older age.

Do we need 8 hours of consecutive sleep?

There are several arguments in favour of why we would need 8 hours of consecutive sleep:

the alignment of our circadian rhythm (24-hour rhythm) and homeostatic process (increased wakefulness increases sleep pressure, while sleep results in a dissipation of this pressure this process also has physiological markers). These are the two main widely accepted processes regulating our sleep-wakefulness and one of the most important things when trying to understand our sleep-wake rhythm [7].

the importance of light in regulating sleep/wakefulness and with it a lot of other hormonal/physiological processes (this relates to the aforementioned circadian rhythm). The timing of our sleep during the hours of darkness seems to be ideal in this sense, or the other way around, because of this darkness one could claim that from an evolutionary perspective it would have been more beneficial to sleep during this part of the day. Sleep could be seen as a very vulnerable state, but sleeping during darkness, could reduce these risks.

although a lot of research focuses on certain stages of sleep (e.g. slow-wave sleep, REM sleep, or even events at a microlevel, like spindle activity...) it is also believed that the cyclic alteration of different sleep stages might allow certain processes to take place (e.g. Diekelman & Bjorn on the memory function of sleep [8]). Splitting sleep patterns might interfere with these cyclic processes.

Within the framework of Borbély's two-process model a deviation from the 8 hours of consecutive sleep would result into problems, either because homeostatic sleep pressure is too low, or because the circadian rhythm doesn't promote sleep.

So what about the people that claim they can do on far less sleep?

one can use stimulants to overcome sleepiness, the most familiar one being caffeine. Caffeine acts upon the adenosine receptors (normally adenosine builds up during wakefulness, parallel to our homeostatic rhythm, and binds to adenosine receptors subsequently promoting sleep, caffeine however blocks the binding of adenosine to these receptors).

cognitive arousal: the two processes by Borbély don't tell the whole story... when one is mentally very engaged/aroused/stressed one can overcome sleepiness. Also discomfort (a term that however might be linked back to arousal as well) or sitting upright can prevent one from falling asleep (e.g. when trying to sleep during a bus ride...). Bouts of sleep however will intrude wakefulness and might reduce performance, even though one might not always notice this subjectively.

some people only comply to an altered sleep schedule for a limited amount of time (not long enough to experience negative health consequences)

people might misperceive the amount of time they sleep

as metabolism decreases when one ages, it could be that sleep need decreases as well [9]

although one often talks about 8 hours of sleep... this still is a general guideline based on a normal distribution, thus one's sleep need can deviate from this and their might be extreme cases as well

The BBC article about biphasic sleep has received some attention in the answer by James Riley and some comments a well. For a more elaborate opinion on this article, I refer to [1]. Bottom line of my comment on the article, is that the study cited to support the claim, isn't representative since people were plunged into darkness for 14 hours every day for a month, and that our current society and technological advancement could pose some additional problems in maintaining the biphasic sleep pattern that was claimed to be the prevailing sleep pattern during the 16th century.

Case in point. My Mother of 95 yrs of age is of sound mind and not had any heart attacks and has lived on 4hrs sleep for decades. Sometimes more but often only this. I too, at 60, have the same pattern. I can work 48hrs straight without ill effects when motivated. I can be awake minutes after a 4hr sleep ready to take on the day.

Getting to sleep is not hard for me either. I can be asleep before the airplane leaves the runway, unless I have good company seated next to me. My body is in great shape and my Doctor agrees.

This is more suited as a comment rather than an answer, as it only cites anecdotal evidence.
– nicoAug 18 '12 at 19:55

If longevity is evidence to absolute opinions to the contrary, then let others show their evidence as well. Answers , after all are only opinions, and few have laws of physics to make irrefutable logic.
– Sunnyskyguy EE75Aug 18 '12 at 20:12

1

as a rule of the site, Skeptics.SE requires references for answers. You may want to have a look at the "Welcome to new users" post on meta. The fact that one or two person can live well with 4 hours of sleep is interesting, but it does not mean that this is true for everyone. It is what is called anecdotal evidence. A proper answer should, for instance, reference a study where a large cohort of people was statistically analysed, with a proper control group and well defined tests.
– nicoAug 18 '12 at 21:34

Polyphasic sleep regimens (which usually are attempted to reduce total sleep time) are difficult to follow, and most who attempt it abandon it after a trial. However, there is evidence that a biphasic pattern was common before the industrial revolution and electric lights. This involved two periods of sleep, both during the night, but with a waking period of one to two hours in between the two phases. More: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16964783

Welcome to the site. You need to provide stronger references to support polyphasic sleep (search for it on this site and you will find that it is not a viable long-term sleeping pattern, IIRC).
– Sklivvz♦Aug 19 '12 at 8:18